STOLEN HEARTS

by Michelle Martin

  Tell them the truth. But they wouldn't listen. They hadn't listened last night and Tess knew with despairing finality that they wouldn't listen to her today.

  No, that was a lie. The truth was she was a craven coward. She could make Luke and Jane believe her if she really wanted to. But she didn't have the courage to lose them just yet. And she wasn't brave enough to give up the Farleigh when she had worked so hard to win it.

  Loving Jane and Luke. Wanting the Farleigh. They were mutually exclusive and she was despicable. She was a fraud pretending to be an heiress who insisted on being a fraud, all for a few more days of ephemeral happiness.

  A headache pounded at her temples.

  At least Luke and Jane were safe now. She wouldn't have to worry about them. The con only had to run for four more days and then she'd be out of this mess for good. She wouldn't stay in this house with Jane, that charade would be ended. She'd insist on it. Tears again started to her eyes and Tess ruthlessly forced them back. She would not become some weepy woman boring everyone to death. She wouldn't! She would leave the Cushman mansion and that would be an end of it.

  She would leave Luke.

  A sob caught in her throat. Oh, damn the man! He had stolen her heart the first time she had looked into his emerald eyes. "Who's the thief in this house anyway?" she muttered.

  The thought of facing him over the breakfast table clawed at her nerves. She didn't want to, she had to, she hated all of it. She walked downstairs, heart pounding painfully in her breast, and walked into the breakfast room to find only Jane sipping her morning coffee.

  "Luke sleep in?" Tess managed as she sat down, ordering her hand not to tremble as she poured herself a cup of hot chocolate.

  "On the contrary," Jane replied, "he was up and gone before I even came downstairs."

  "Gone?" Tess said, trying to keep her voice neutral.

  "He left a message that he had a thirty-six-hour day at the office. We won't see him until late tonight, if at all."

  "Oh," Tess said, feeling small.

  As the day trudged slowly onward, she began to be afraid. Last night Luke had openly declared that she was Elizabeth Cushman, but he couldn't wait to get away from her this morning. Was he trying to avoid her?

  She went shopping to distract herself, convinced that when she got back to the estate, Luke would be there. But he wasn't. When he didn't return in time for dinner, fear began to gnaw at her. What would she see when he finally did appear and she looked in his eyes?

  She stayed up as late as she could, ostensibly to read a book in the Belle Epoque salon, but really trying to wait, without seeming to, for Luke. By eleven o'clock she couldn't fake it any longer. She said good night to Jane and went to bed, lying awake as one hour passed, and another, before finally drifting disconsolately to sleep.

  He had already left for his office by the time she came down to breakfast the next morning. She wanted to scream with frustration. Why was he doing this? Why was he avoiding her? Why didn't he even want to speak to her? Why, when she needed them so badly, couldn't she come up with even one answer to one question? Was something about to blow up in her face?

  Would it be Luke?

  * * *

  Friday night crept slowly across the Cushman estate. Tess took an hour-long bath, trying and failing to luxuriate in the hot water as she rehearsed in her mind once again the interpretation she planned to give to her role as the long-lost granddaughter. But all she could think about was Luke and loving him and fearing him.

  Tess shivered and pushed herself up and out of the bathtub. She used the huge bath towel vigorously on herself, rubbing her skin pink. She stepped into the gold gown she had bought for the dinner party. It had a full skirt that fell to her feet from a V-necked halter bodice. Then she slipped a gold and blue sapphire necklace around her throat, clipped on the matching set of earrings, slipped into her shoes, and surveyed herself in the mirror.

  Not bad, she thought, studying herself from every angle. There was definitely a hint of Cinderella at the ball, but this Cinderella seemed to know what time it was. Tess grinned at herself in the mirror. She looked good enough to give herself some confidence and she needed all the confidence she could get now that she would finally be facing Luke again.

  In the Grand Hall, Jane, dressed in a silver and black full-length gown, was already greeting the first of her guests when she saw Tess coming down the stairs. She caught her arm and drew her to her side with a fond smile. From then on, she introduced to Tess each person who came through the front door, and introduced her to them simply as "Tess." They received several curious glances, but no one asked about the privileged position of a stranger in the Cushman mansion. Tess, recalling the duchess she was modeling herself on—an English country woman addicted to dogs, gardening, and the jolliest parties—remained cool, calm, and collected throughout these introductions and measured glances … until Luke walked through the door.

  He was dressed in an Armani tuxedo that draped itself across his lean, muscular body. His eyes swept to hers and held her gaze, the emerald darkening as he studied every inch of her. Tess felt as if she were being devoured and she loved it! Then he was standing before her and she stopped breathing.

  "You are stunning," he murmured. For one wild moment she thought he was going to kiss her, despite Jane, despite all the people around them, but then he blinked and began to introduce the five tall people who had entered with him.

  His family.

  Tess felt the color drain from her face, but she managed to keep her smile firmly entrenched as she shook hands with his two sisters, Hannah and Miriam, and his brother, Joshua. The smile only faltered when Luke introduced his parents.

  Luke's mother, Regina, was a good ten inches taller than Tess, her skin ivory, her gown Yves Saint Laurent, her hair and makeup by Elizabeth Arden, her green eyes shuttered as she took Tess's hand.

  "I am so glad to meet you," she said coolly to Tess. "Luke has told us nothing about you. But then, he was always fond of a secret. You are lovely, my dear. You seem very familiar. Haven't I seen you somewhere before? Cannes? Rome, perhaps?"

  "Mother," Luke said.

  "She has a very cosmopolitan air, Luke, and I was only asking."

  Luke shook his head in amusement. "I'll give you her pedigree later. Now move along."

  "That's right, give the rest of us a chance," said Mr. Daniel Mansfield as he shook Tess's limp hand. He had Luke's height and lean build, but his hair was salt-and-pepper gray, his eyes black, his face remarkably free of the lines that would indicate his true age. "You are lovely, my dear. Divorced?"

  "Dad!"

  "Single," Tess replied.

  "University?"

  "Dad!"

  "Oxford."

  "Excellent. Do you like to foxhunt?"

  "Not even on a bicycle," Tess retorted.

  "Pity. We're getting up a bit of a party next weekend, thought you might be interested."

  "That is enough snooping for now, Dad," Luke said firmly.

  "I wasn't snooping! No Mansfield would be so vulgar. I was merely soliciting common interests."

  "Uh-huh," Luke said. "Come along, parents mine. We're holding up the receiving line."

  "You've survived this first onslaught very well, my dear," Regina Mansfield said, her eyes drilling into Tess. "I daresay you could take on the entire Mansfield clan with one hand tied behind your back."

  "Only if you give me lots and lots of drugs first," Tess retorted.

  Regina Mansfield allowed herself an amused smile and then walked into the living room with Luke, the rest of her family trailing behind.

  Tess sagged against Jane. "If she's an example of your friends, I'd hate to meet your enemies."

  "Regina was always a very … determined sort of woman," Jane replied.

  When sixty of Jane's nearest and dearest had assembled, she led them into the dining room and took her place at the head of the table with Luke on her left and Luke's father on her right. Tess was assigned the c
hair at the foot of the table opposite Jane. No sooner had her guests taken their seats than Jane rose and called for silence.

  "My dear friends," she said, "I have asked you all here to witness the most important announcement I have ever made. The dinner tonight and the party tomorrow are a poor means of celebration, but with you around me I am sure this announcement will be given its proper due. Ladies and gentlemen, after twenty years of searching, I am finally able to state with all certainty and happiness that I have at last found my granddaughter Elizabeth. She calls herself Tess now and is seated at the foot of the table."

  There was a collective gasp from everyone in the room, including the servants. Every gaze swept to Tess, who was feeling somewhat like Cinderella making her entrance at the ball dressed in a slip. A half-slip.

  "But this is impossible!" a young woman in sequins cried out, and then immediately blushed at her faux pas.

  "On the contrary," Luke stated in a clear voice that carried the length of the room as his entire family stared at Tess with an intensity that seemed to be genetic, "every detail has been checked and rechecked, every test possible has been run. Tess," he said, his green eyes locked on hers, holding her spellbound, "is Elizabeth Cushman."

  It took twenty minutes for the roar of congratulations, stupefied questions, and eager declarations that they had always known Elizabeth would be found, before Jane could bring the room back under control and offer a toast to her granddaughter. The guests rose and turned to Tess, their glasses raised.

  She couldn't keep the blush from creeping into her cheeks, but Tess could hold at bay the tears hovering on her eyelids. She thought if only Elizabeth had lived what a homecoming she would have had, and envied her the love and happiness these people were so eager to bestow on the Cushman granddaughter. Sadness welled within her, for she would never in her life know the kind of family Elizabeth had had. But she smiled at these people, her charade intact, and then rose to offer a toast to Jane.

  "To my grandmother," she said, her voice quavering only slightly, "for her generosity, kindness, and love. It's good to be home again."

  The night went by in a blur. All she clearly saw was Luke … and that he was never nearer to her than twenty feet throughout the evening. She was surrounded by well-wishers and curiosity seekers every minute of the night. Whenever she had a moment to catch her breath and try to get to Luke, she was waylaid by yet another old family friend who couldn't exclaim enough over the joy at her return.

  It took only an hour of this frustration to create a roaring headache that pounded on her brain. Her breath had been coming only in short little puffs since she had first sat down to dinner. She wanted to weep. She wanted to rage.

  Never had she been this close to cracking. She wanted to just chuck the job and hide herself away. New Zealand came to mind. Instead, she smiled nonstop at Jane's friends and watched every move Luke made.

  She knew a moment of hope at around two in the morning when Jane announced in her clear, authoritative voice that if they wanted to party in earnest on the morrow, they had best go to bed tonight. The thirty guests who still remained, including the Mansfields, were all spending the night at the Cushman mansion. Tomorrow was Saturday. Luke's office was closed, the press were coming. Luke had to stay as well. He no longer had an excuse to escape the house, to avoid her. There was even a chance she could still speak with him tonight.

  But Tess had reckoned without his family. A very determined bunch, the Mansfields, she noted sourly. His parents collared their eldest son and dragged him off to the library just as Jane looped her arm around Tess's waist and insisted on escorting her to her room personally.

  It was the first time since they had met that Tess had actively disliked Jane.

  But she went upstairs to Elizabeth's room, bid a fond good night to Elizabeth's grandmother, and then ruthlessly stripped off all of Elizabeth's trappings; the gown, the jewels, the sexy hairdo. She pulled on her cotton pajamas and stared at herself in the mirror with relief. She was herself again. She was Tess Alcott, mongrel thief, without a drop of blue blood in her veins.

  Without Luke Mansfield in her arms. "Oh damn!" she said as she threw herself onto her bed.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  « ^ »

  Tess moved among the two hundred guests who had gathered for Saturday lunch and would be dancing the night away at the ball later that evening. She wore an Oxford shirt, tweed skirt, and sensible walking shoes, laughing and chatting with whoever approached her or whoever she sought out. But Luke did not approach her, and she was afraid to seek him out.

  As she uttered cheery banalities to whoever wanted to talk to her, she could feel Luke's hot gaze on her. Why was he watching her every move? Why didn't he come to her, speak to her, kiss her? Oh, this was agony—wanting what she could not have, fearing what the next minute would bring. What type of bomb would it be? When would it detonate? How would it detonate?

  Just get it over with, she wanted to yell at Luke. He was setting her up. He had to be setting her up. It was the only explanation. She had never imagined he and Jane could be so cruel, luring her into supposed safety by declaring her to be Elizabeth, and then snapping the steel trap shut around her at their leisure. What were they waiting for? Why the party and the ball and the reporters? Was this some sort of monumental revenge? Had she trespassed so badly?

  Tess allowed herself a grim smile. That was a foolish question. Of course she had trespassed that badly. She had laid waste to every moral precept, every ethical consideration, she had ever held. She had betrayed Jane, she had betrayed Luke. This torturous waiting and wondering was the perfect punishment.

  At two o'clock, the reporters began gathering in the Cushman ballroom, chairs set up in rows for their comfort. At three o'clock, Jane marched to the front of the room, followed by Tess and Luke. He said nothing to her though they were only two feet apart. Facing the reporters, Jane calmly made her announcement. A collective gasp filled the room, quickly followed by a barrage of questions that Jane and Tess easily fielded, Luke speaking up only when necessary to substantiate their story.

  Knowing what she had to do, Tess played the reporters for all they were worth to create the image she wanted of the prodigal granddaughter returned home at last. The reporters loved her, either not knowing or not caring that she was manipulating them. Her newest role was quotable, photogenic, funny, brave. She was the sort of story their readers and viewers would be talking about for weeks to come. She was the sort of story editors and producers loved.

  Tess thought Bert would be pleased with her media coverage. But it was a double-edged sword for her. She was kissing the career she had loved good-bye. With her picture in every newspaper and magazine, and on every television set around the world, she would now be recognized wherever she went. She would never be able to pull another heist in safety. She would never be able to work with Cyril and Gladys again.

  At the same time, she was glad. That old Tess had been washed away with her tears. She didn't want to be a thief anymore. She didn't want to con one more person. Unfortunately, what she did want was Luke, and Jane, and she could never have them. She'd need a new job, something to occupy her brain instead of this constant guilt and pain. At the moment, all she could hope for was to work as an advisor, a consultant sitting safely behind a desk. Tess grimaced. Maybe Cyril could turn her onto something. Word was, he was well connected.

  At the end of two hours, she walked out of the ballroom and was once again surrounded by eager well-wishers and unregenerate snoops. Everyone wanted to know about every minute of the last twenty years of her life. This, at least, was safe ground. Tess gave them the spin on her life she had given the reporters, the same spin she had given Luke and Jane when she had first come to the Cushman mansion.

  She could practically recite it in her sleep, which meant she was free to feel Luke's eyes on her every minute, her own gaze following him unerringly as he moved through the crowd. Finally, just after five o'clock,
when she could stand it no longer, she let her feet do the walking. She wasn't feeling brave enough to openly accost Luke. But she could eavesdrop and maybe insinuate herself into a conversation, maybe get him to speak to her, touch her. She edged around the huge oak tree, three feet from where Luke was standing as he surveyed the crowd with a decidedly grim expression on his handsome face.

  "Probably thinking about me," Tess muttered to herself.

  "Stop frowning, boy," Daniel Mansfield commanded as he reached Luke's side. "We Mansfields have a reputation of pleasant civility to uphold."

  Luke grinned. "Sorry, Dad. I wasn't thinking."

  "No, you were simply thinking of something grim. The press conference go well?"

  "Perfectly. Tess should have gone on the stage."

  Tess's mouth went dry.

  Daniel raised one eyebrow. "I gather there is more here than we are being told?"

  Luke's eyes met his father's steady gaze. "Much more."

  "Jane isn't going to be hurt, is she?"

  "Not if I have anything to say about it, and I do."

  Daniel Mansfield let out a sigh of relief. "Good boy. I always knew blood would tell. So what's up?"

  Luke's grimness returned. "Mayhem."

  His father looked him up and down, as if seeing him for the first time. "Sounds interesting," Daniel said. "You will keep me posted on all this?"

  "Absolutely."

  "There's a rumor going around that you're breaking out. Running mad in the streets. Something like that. Any truth to the rumor?"

  "Some."

  Daniel sighed heavily. "You were always a problem child. Well, if the Mansfields could survive blue jean haute couture, we can survive anything. So out with it, boy. What are you up to?"

  "I've made a dinner reservation at the Twilight Room for next week."

  Daniel Mansfield blanched. "Is it that bad?"

  "Yep."

  "You're not marrying Maria Franklin?"

  "No."

  "Thank God," Daniel said with a shudder. "I need a drink. Want one?"